Here we are another week gone by, life is marching on so fast, changing so fast, its hard to keep up with it all. Most times I am lost trying to navigate where we are in the week or month even. There is so many things changing for so many people, not just dementia but life as we now it. It feels as though the whole world is in a state of transition and I am not sure where it will take us all but I am sure hoping it will be to a place where we all gentler and kinder. Where everyone has enough to eat and clean water to drink, where we care for our earth and all that it provides vs. thinking we are superior in all ways and in all things.
The world and all its beings, humans, animals, earth nature, our oceans and waterways, all hurting. I feel at my core that the pandemic was the start of this transition, then the war in Ukraine started, then came supply shortages, food shortages, and on it goes, then Her majesty Queen Elizabeth dies, ( a side note my middle name comes being from the queen, my mother loved her), that too me signifies major change in and around the world. I am not sure we are through the worst of what we are to feel before it happens, I somehow , although I hate to say it but I truly believe worse days are coming before we see a new way forged ahead. But I also believe that when we do reach the other side we will have a much better world for all to live in.
I miss my sister terribly, I called to chat with my brother in law today, got the answering machine, my sisters voice came on, I heard myself gasp, I wanted to hang up and call again so I could hear it again and again. Instead I just had a cry. Then I had a long phone call with my brother, was good for my heart and soul.
My brain is all over the place on day to the next, physically I am feeling good, inflammation down, yoga, exercising, meditating, walking, riding my bike. I embrace the times when I am physically able to enjoy life a little, for the times when I can’t are sometimes long and feel as though they are never ending.
We just had the Harvest moon, and I believe the moons have so much influence over our brains, it brings tides of change and just as the tides change so too do we. even if just for days before, during and after, I am always wondering about how much is really put into understanding the effects of the mons, the seasons have on us. I think back to my working days and their was those of us who were always aware and watching for changes in people during the change or approaching full moons.
Today is Monday, somehow my Sunday writing has transpired to be finished on a Monday, but thats how things are for me, for if I lose focus even for a moment, I will not get back to whatever it was I was doing, for it is gone for the time, but its a new day and I was suddenly reminded that I had a blog that remained unfinished. What reminded is was something someone had posted and the link to the article is below.
Controversy abound around the topic of medical assisted dying. There is many varying views and ideas about what Medical assistance in dying is and or what it should be.
There are many living with dementia who believe we have become the disposable ones, during covid, receiving the least amount of care or concern, and this was shown to be true. No one should ever be disposable, no one should have the right to decide who is worth saving and who isn’t.
But we all should have the right to decide what is right for us, not for what our loved ones or our friends but for us. If we taught all these things in school if it was all part of education, people would make wise decisions, long before decisions such as who is going to live and die ever happens.
Medical Assistance in dying is a wonderful tool, to allow someone to die on their terms in their way. For people who want to ensure they have a good death, that they are not a burden on anyone, that they do not have to risk suffering pain and discomfort, it is a welcome option. For some families it is a way to celebrate the ending of life in a fashion that allows for very special moments. It does not mean they will grieve less, it just means that the final leg of the journey can be something they can take part in and cherish. I have known a number of people who have been able to access this way to their final journey, I have yet to hear a family member saying anything bad about the experience. Most admit, that it would be their choice too after the experience. I have had the honour to sit by the bedside of many many people as they left this world, I have seen good deaths and bad ones, the best ones I have seen were done as the person wanted and outside of hospital and care settings and I believe if people are able to access medical assistance in dying, we would have many more good deaths. I have had the conversations with people who believe that it is going against gods will to take ones life, but if that is true then when we use medicine to keep people lingering longer that they otherwise would without the measures we use to medical interfere to sustain life becomes just as wrong. So I will never judge someone for their personal decisions, I will fight for everyone to have the right to choose for themselves and not be at the mercy of others deciding who gets care, who gets life and who doesn’t.
I also believe that we have to take our personal beliefs out of the equation and listen to what the person wants honour the person.
It is about personal choices, mine are made, they are rock solid, I will never go into an ICU, I will never be resuscitated, those are my choices to make. I am fighting for the rights of people with dementia to be able to preset their medical assisted death, before they reach a point where they can no longer make those choices, my doctor and I have worked hard to cover it all off as absolute best we can for me in the meantime.
But we all need to get real, we all need to do some deep soul searching about what we want and learn how to talk about it. Not just flippant conversations when we see or hear about in the news, but to have conversations with our families about all end of life aspects. Teach our children about life and death from young ages, go back to a time where we truly allow people time and space to mourn, where we don’t keep putting off making our decisions known and doing them in a legal manner to protect ourselves and to help our loved ones.
I don’t like articles like he ones below because they make it all about the $$ instead of what it should be really about and that is the human piece in all of it. So the picture they paint makes it all sound awful and for sure if we don’t fight for the right to make those decisions for ourselves then we give the people in those settings to start making decisions for us. It is a fact of life in a real disaster people are triaged, sometimes there is no other way when there is mass casualties. The case of people being left the way they were in long term care is a whole different issue it is about a lack of the system to manage and maintain care during a crisis. These people were not triaged they were just neglected. People are trained to do their basic job on a day to day basis, they are not trained on how to manage and reconfigure work loads during times like we saw in Covid. This kind of training should always be a continuous learning and doing. Anyways its a big topic, no easy answers unless like me you don’t leave nothing to chance hoping those around you will make the right choices for you. Whatever and however you feel about it is up to you and we should all respect each others wants and needs in it. Here is the article:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/medically-assisted-death-could-save-millions-1.3947481
Ok onto other thing, as turbulent as life is and as much as we are transitioning to whatever the way forward the world decides to go, try to be in the moment, the moment of your life. Enjoy the day, enjoy the next day and the one after that, in whatever fashion makes you feel filled with joy and happiness. For if we focus on the good that still abounds for us all we surely will have and find a brighter way forward.
Wishing you all a lovely week.
Chrissy's Journey 